


The Man's a Bit of a Dandy

by Nolfalvrel



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Blindness, Canon-Typical Violence, Dancing, Fluff and Angst, Folk Dancing, Gang Attack, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Grumpy Geralt, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protectiveness, Rated For Violence, Sick Geralt, Sickfic, Soft Geralt, Temporary Blindness, geralt and jaskier do that one scene in tangled, in chapter 3 now for fluff reasons, in his own way, then things get real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22164223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nolfalvrel/pseuds/Nolfalvrel
Summary: During a fight with Noonwraiths, Geralt is temporarily blinded while protecting Jaskier, and forced, begrudgingly, to admit the bard might be somewhat of a friend.(Or maybe even something more)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 111
Kudos: 984





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhh I loved Jaskier and Geralt's interactions and just needed to contribute something for this ship :3 rudimentary knowledge of the games and research into the background of the show, so apologies for any glaring mistakes!
> 
> And ah yes, this is definitely set prior to their mini-breakup :')

Jaskier had never particularly grown on Geralt.

At least, not in the benign way. 

In fact, if he could rationalize their relationship, he would equivocate the experience to being subjected to the bulbous growth of a tumour. 

In fact in fact, it bothered Geralt that he had to admit they had _any_ kind of relationship at all. He had little patience for company at the best of times, let alone to someone whose verbal appetite was as voracious as the bard’s.

So yes. Jaskier was like a round, menacing cluster that stuck to Geralt and cooed to all the women that wandered within seeing distance and squeaked at any creatures in hearing distance and whenever they encountered nothing at all, cursed his ears with a song. And it was weird, to think, in any way, that such a disease would breed a sense of attachment in the Witcher.

But the minute his vision went dark and he heard the monster howl and then Jaskier’s pained reply, all he could think of was that he couldn’t tell how far away from danger the other was, and it was like a snake pulled tight around his lungs and let all the air out.

He didn’t care that he was bleeding, or that his ankle was numb, perhaps from being twisted when he’d slid in the muck. He could only think that the lunatic was way too close to the dangers this time, and why the _fuck_ was he so close?

The heat of the hellish summer sun brought the Noonwraiths to quite a number of fields. Geralt had been cleaning up, collecting from desperate farmers who feared the ghosts would destroy their crops with their ferocious, cyclonic dancing. 

He didn’t bother to correct the men and let them know their own lives were in far more danger than the agriculture.

Jaskier did that for him.

“These wicked ladies aren’t the fun kind. Funny enough, they’re actually quite shy broads,” Jaskier explained naturally, as though the knowledge wasn’t borrowed from the Witcher. “If you had stared any longer, they would have sucked you up and whipped you into dancing until your heart gave up and burst into red little slivers.” He accentuated the sentence with his fist exploding from his chest, fingers spasming. He looked the plump farmer up and down as though noticing his size for the first time. “Which, er, judging by your countenance, wouldn’t take long.” He patted the round, protruding stomach of the man, beaming easily with Geralt looming in a glower behind him.

And Jaskier repeated the story with exponential drama and flair at every plough hand that came to call on them, at one story retelling collapsing to his knees in pretend agony and frightening the young children of a farmer’s wife, who in turn screeched at her husband to pay any price to be rid of the monsters.

They’d wandered into the grain, purse fat enough to be tied to Roach’s saddlebag instead of carried upon the hip. Jaskier strumming his stupid engorged wooden spoon with a trilling whistle. Geralt ready to make him eat it.

And now Geralt was sliding, trying to get to a stand and orientate himself, panicking, because he _couldn’t fucking see_ and Jaskier was _screaming_.

A ghost gave an unearthly cry and Geralt whipped his sword around. 

_“Geralt!”_

“Dammit, where are you?” Geralt snarled in reply, sight black. He couldn’t even pinpoint light. It was just darkness, and it burned, like his sockets had been gouged by a torch still hot with ashes. 

He could barely hear above the cacophonous wind and the shudder of his heart as it finally began to match the speed of a man’s.

The bard had wandered closer because he wanted to be inspired. As if watching eighty paces back, away from the danger and cozy next to a grazing Roach was an inconvenience. As if being safe was an inconvenience. 

And because he’d been such a pestering little twit, and because Geralt was getting relatively fast at disposing of Noonwraiths, he’d decided to save himself the headache of arguing with Jaskier’s petulant whine.

Geralt hadn’t expected there to be three of the things.

A shriek came heavy on his right, and Geralt snapped to meet it, plunging his sword into air. Cloth whispered across his face from the creature’s tattered dress. 

The sound passed below his legs. He crumpled as they were clawed out from under him.

But he rolled to the side, back on his feet in a crouch instantly and lunging at where he estimated one of the Noonwraiths to stand.

He missed, silver blade meeting nothing, gritting his teeth. Muck stuck to him like a coat over his sweat. His eyes roved desperately for sight.

“Fucccccckk! Witcher!” Geralt rushed toward the cry only to dodge the swipe of clawed fingers, losing the trail of Jaskier in the wailing.

“Tell me where you are!” He couldn’t fight like this, not knowing where the human was. If he continued wind milling his sword, he was apt to strike the human before he struck the monsters. He realized the bard, ignorant and freezing in the face of danger, might not understand. “Jaskier! Tell me where you are. Call to me!”

A Noonwraith beckoned shrilly just beyond arm’s length while another felt closer on his left, over his shoulder, and Geralt whirled the blade up and over with an intricacy only known to his kind. It danced, singing through the air, promising death. The true, best kind of triple-threat. It was still more luck than skill that it ripped through the flesh of one the undead maids, sending her reeling away, the other unfortunate enough to take the end of the near fatal blow. 

The weapon cleaved into her skin, the specter oil on it bubbling rotting skin in an acrid, poisonous smell, and Geralt could tell by the thrashing and screaming he’d caught her neck. He kicked and wrenched free. The move brought her onto her back with ear-shredding sound. 

He felt the remains of her dress float round him as he chased her; brought the silver down between her ribs; her skirts becoming flames that he shielded his face from as she was purged. Evaporating to ash. Movement behind Geralt had him somersaulting forward and coming round into a hanging stance—

—before letting a hand fall away from the hilt and outstretch into the black nothingness before him.

Smell and sound saved Jaskier from a beheading. Human musk was incredibly distinct, and those fancy, ridiculous boots were obnoxiously noisy at times of discretion, let alone the bard’s panicked flight into Geralt’s waiting arm. He collided with Geralt, barely moving the tensed Witcher.

Jaskier gasped and floundered, trying to shake Geralt. “How could you _possibly_ think it was a good idea to let me get so close to these fucking things?” 

At one-point Jaskier had told him he had a different sigh for every letter of the alphabet. Like he was spelling out a lost word of misery. Geralt wondered which one he uttered now as he shoved the man to the ground, throwing himself toward the two Noonwraiths that were chasing him. 

He cut high. Drove them back, working with confidence now that he had a landmark. He formed Yrden, hearing Jaskier start. Probably at the purple glow of the Sign that circled them.

Leading the creatures around Jaskier, Geralt kept his back toward the man at all times. He still couldn’t see, but without distractions, it was a lot easier to hack at the monsters, freely and violently. Until, with collapsing wails, they too were engulfed by conflagrations that Geralt could only feel.

Normally, vanquishing a monster brought a sense of apathetic accomplishment, sometimes pity, to Geralt. Far enough away that he could poke at the emotions with a stick and ruminate how they would feel if they actually engulfed him. Like coming across the dead carcass of a beast slain by another. Picking at the scraps of feeling.

This time, there was a lance of brutal satisfaction. Barely in his blood, but still hotter and fiercer than the rest of the numb emotions. 

This time, he thought, as he could hear Jaskier complaining behind him, _Good riddance_.

“Bloody fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jaskier squeaked. Geralt turned, flicking his sword of the black blood and oil. Striding definitively. “All this running and shoving is not good for my countenance. It destroys the buttocks, and the ladies are always crooning after my clearly very luscious as—ah--ahh!” 

Yanked to his feet by his doublet, Jaskier’s hands quickly came round Geralt’s bracer.

“Whoa there Geralt!”

“I assume by the way your mouth is still moving that you’re not hurt?” Geralt growled. There was still a pounding in his ears that he was unfamiliar with. A tang in his mouth that was adrenaline and something more.

“Pfft, can’t you see that I’m fine? Dumb things couldn’t catch up to me.” Jaskier scoffed, then a hand smacked Geralt’s chest, where the vice grip he’d felt during the battle begins to uncurl. “No thanks to you though Geralt. Let me clarify one thing for you, this—” There was a flurry of movement, Jaskier clearly waving his hands, “Is a universal human sign for distress! Okay? You wanna’ add that to your little human behaviour diary or whatever? _‘When someone is screaming and running around like a flightless quail, he would probably like my help’!_ ” 

If there was one benefit to this man-sized cancer, it was that, very, very, very rarely, his indignation could prove amusing. Jaskier’s expressions were like a horse at full gallop. And right now, still attached to Geralt by the Witcher’s thick hand buried in his doublet, his squawking and flailing was sure to be somewhat entertaining, even if it was mostly annoying. If he could see it.

That thought that carved deeper frown lines into Geralt’s face. “Hmmm.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Jaskier’s form jerked on the end of the Witcher’s hand. “Are they coming back?”

“No,” Geralt said, eyes flickering in irritation at the pitch of the other. “They’re gone for good.” He finally let go, letting the bard stumble and pushing past him in a show of nonchalance. Heading in the direction with the strongest scent of Roach. 

“Well that was definitely not a happy ‘hmmm’. I’m getting pretty good at distinguishing them you know. Considering you give them out as often as a rabbit shits.”

“Hmmm,” Geralt responded for good measure. Still deciphering that hot, violent sensation that had latched onto his heart and curled tightly until he had been sure idiotic, useless, babbling Jaskier was intact. 

Wondering now how long the blinding was going to last. 

“Ughh,” came Jaskier’s own reply. Then he seemed to brighten. “Do you think we could ask them for more money since we took care of three of those ladies?”

“There was no ‘we’.” Geralt responded, indifferent up until the point he reached for Roach’s reins and met air. He moved his hand gently, trying to be subtle.

“Speak for yo—um, Geralt? What are you doing?”

Geralt retracted his hand quickly. He ignored Jaskier, trying to pinpoint Roach, who appeared to be two feet further to the left than estimated.

Jaskier, like he could not possibly be quiet unless his mouth was full (because even sleeping he was noisy, snoring and slobbering), like making some kind of noise was as necessary as breathing, slammed right into Geralt’s ears with a ramble. They still ached from the fight, and Geralt felt severe irritation.

“Is, uh, everything alright there? Did you just—cast a spell or something? I mean it looks like one of those strange things you do all the time and never explain, but—”

“Dammit Jaskier _shut up_!” Geralt whipped a furious glare over his shoulder, then promptly stumbled over a root as he moved towards Roach.

“…Are you alright?” Jaskier’s question was halting and confused.

“I’m fine.” Clearly caught, Geralt fumbled, uncaring now, towards the horse. The wind through the tree line and the breathing of Jaskier and the ringing in his ears was too much for him to move clearly. 

He felt movement beside him and then a nervous hand guided his palm to Roach’s long face, the horse also lead forward by a matching set of fingers. “Wow they really did a number on you, didn’t they?” He was no less loud, but Jaskier spoke slower now, contemplative. “Er, what exactly did they do to you, Geralt?”

Useless orange eyes glanced over at Jaskier, or at least the direction of his voice, before looking away.

“…Can’t see.” Geralt spat out roughly.

“What?”

“They blinded me.”

Silence replied. Maybe Jaskier was making one of his famous facial contortions. He erupted then. “Oh my Heavens is that permanent?”

“No.”

“Okay we really need to talk about the flow of information when it comes to serious topics Geralt. Okay, okay, no, I guess I should be sympathetic, although I get the distinct feeling if this had happened to me, you would have said that I would slow you down and wandered off with Roach, which, come to think of it, is exactly what I should do—”

Murderous fury boiled over Geralt’s expression in warning.

“—but I’m not because I’m actually invested in our friendship. But seriously, now you’re going to have to admit that we are, in fact, friends, because I’m about to be the most necessary person in the world to you. And who else is that but a friend?”

“A doctor.”

“Right, well, how are you _getting_ to a doctor?” Jaskier snipped back, then dropped, hands clamping uselessly around the Witcher’s calf and pulling.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting-you-on-the-horse,” Jaskier wheezed, straining. 

Geralt sighed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I know this pushes things back slightly but I couldn't help but add another chapter because... the idea of ring dancing and Geralt and Jaskier... c'mon... I'm only human >////<
> 
> Next chapter, for sure, we get to the whump!!

They were so unalike in physiognomy that it was inevitable in any circumstance for them to stand out. It was literally like comparing a spring rainbow to the dark side of the moon—they were on such opposite spectrums that one might begin to wonder when and why they would end up in the same sentence, let alone the same space.

As it was so often that one of the men did something the other disagreed with, in most moments Geralt was left as perplexed as onlookers why they stayed together.

Well, why _Jaskier_ bothered to be by his side.

Roach had long grown familiar with the Bard, long enough to let the man lead with Geralt perched behind him awkwardly. It was nowhere near as awkward as the moment, hours before, where Geralt had mounted Roach and held her reins with determination, before staring ahead blankly. 

Coming to a sad realization. 

Jaskier’s silence, for once, had been unwelcome.

When his voice did come, that had been unwelcome too.

“Y’know you got up there with such confidence I thought you were going to be able to smell your way to a healer.”

“Hmmm.” 

“Or you were going to tap Roach twice and she’d lead you to some woods-woman or something.”

“Would’ve been a great trick,” Geralt admitted gruffly. 

Dignity sullied, the Witcher had come to a second realization quickly as he felt Roach shift, Jaskier clambering up behind. 

He was too big for Jaskier to see around. 

Summarily, he had been regulated to the back of the horse, where he now brooded. He strained his ears intently, trying to make out any sound that could be a precursor to danger. It was enormously difficult, given the messy way in which Jaskier lead Roach through the wilderness. Finding every twig and dry leaf in the continent. 

All the while serenading her.

Loudly.

_Such a prett—y_  
_This filly,  
_ _Oh h—ea—r her ninny,  
_ _With violets and lilacs in m—a—ne…_

“Jaskier.”

_We rush!_  
_Through the brush,  
_ _Oh-so-fast that I may ne’er breathe ag—a-a—in…_

“Jaskier!” He butted the approximate area of where the hymn came loudest with his chin.

“Ow,” Jaskier complained, though in a less whiny manner than expected. As though accustomed to it. “You’re ridiculously good at that for someone who can’t see.” 

Unaffected, Geralt murmured. “It wouldn’t happen so often if you stopped forgetting to keep quiet. These paths are dangerous and crawling with bandits. As I’ve said before. Multiple times.” His frustration was thick through his veins and voice. 

How could he have felt such… 

…well, it hadn’t been fear, surely, because again, that was too human an emotion to grace his being. 

Nonetheless, whatever the volatile, harsh reaction in his body had been back then, it was ridiculous that he had endured it _only because of Jaskier_ , and it made the one feeling he was capable of understanding, anger, rear up now in distaste. 

Anger that he had been afflicted by this man at all. 

More so than usual, that was.

“Right, well, not that I haven’t enjoyed brooding with you,” Jaskier said sarcastically, but in that jovial way that could only be his. “But any bandits would have to be downright moronic to attack us so close to a fortress.” Geralt perked up with a frown.

‘We’re near a town?” He listened again. Roach’s hooves rung sharper on the path, signaling levelling earth and stonework to come.

“A big one too. And, er, hopefully friendly to wolves, if you catch my meaning.” 

They argued a bit then, because it seemed they were incapable of having a normal conversation, about Geralt’s appearance. Eventually, it was agreed the best thing to do would be for him to tie a cloth over his eyes. 

_‘To prevent undue attention being drawn without the means to retaliate’_ was the deciding blow. 

The winning and losing sides for the argument would remain nameless.

Soon, they were joined by other travelers. The creak of a cart and some padding feet. The bray of a donkey. The smell of overripe fruit and manure. Even without his sight, Geralt could feel the eyes gouging over them, taking in his white dirty hair and long swords; hard face drenched in blood and grime. He had no idea if them being unable to see the yellow slits of his pupils made things better or worse. 

Whispering voices chased the men when Jaskier eventually pushed Roach into a trot. Then a canter.

There was some barter and cheerful bureaucracy between Jaskier and the tollmen at the stone gate, though decidedly less cheery from the other men. When they asked about Geralt he kept still, but let a hand stiffen on Jaskier’s waist. They were waived through with a sly mention of additional coin from the bard and the clink of them landing in an outstretched cup. 

Jaskier parked them to the side almost immediately after, lifting the blindfold to give a surprise quasi-bath to Geralt’s face with their waterskins, almost being thrown off the horse in response.

The town was leaning more towards a city, and Geralt’s senses sparked with stimulus. Talking, babes crying, a swell of noises coming in and out of a general buzzing hum. Brusque scents of people bombarded him. Sweat, feces, spiced meat, even tanning chemicals at one point. Nastily baking in the heat. It smelled off, wrong somehow, or maybe just more intense without his eyes.

Jaskier baked too, his neck sticking whenever he accidentally slouched backward in fatigue, before jerking upright at the contact. His skin peeling away from Geralt’s exposed chest. The bard stopped often to ask about healers and doctors, and though many were friendly to such a bright face and tone, the townsfolk lead them around in circles.

Not intentionally. At least, though an odd presence frayed his nerves with an instinct to flee, it was likely unbeknownst to the people his true physiology. Thus Geralt didn’t believe they were being deliberately sent after a goose. Although everyone did seem to be doing a marvelous job at wasting their time. 

The problem was that, in general, the human settlement was lacking; if there was a doctor’s door they knocked on, they were of the barest caliber, and completely unfamiliar with magic. A generous total of two apothecaries were both out of stock for any ingredients they could use in an antidote or elixir. The one healer they managed to find ended up being nothing more than a cardwoman, cryptically opening the door before they knocked.

“Done in by whores,” She’d predicted aloud, directed undoubtedly at Jaskier, and Geralt could tell by the bard’s strange energy his hand had morphed from a raised fist into an indolent finger and his large mouth was spreading in protesting question.

“A ‘horse’? Did you say horse? What do y—” He was cut off by Geralt grabbing firm hold of his scruff and dragging him back to Roach as the woman cackled. Jaskier squawking like a trapped canary. 

At one point during their search, Geralt had been struck by that uncomfortable neck-prickling, the feeling of being watched by another, rather insidious, gaze. In fact, it felt somehow as though they were being observed by an entire towns’ worth of people. The crawl lingered on his back like a coat of spiders. Like someone was stepping on their shadows, following. A suspicion which he couldn’t confirm or confront, though his head swiveled constantly in the crowds. 

If uselessly.

Geralt had had to be tuned to Jaskier all afternoon, taunt and trying to follow every motion that breached the small circle of space around Roach; or them both whenever they dismounted. Listening for strained tones. He was hyper aware that Jaskier did not have many intimidatory talents. 

Although Geralt could toss him an offhand compliment about his singing, in volume, not skill, it amounted to one of two valuable qualities in the man’s repertoire. The other one being the ability to run away from something very, very quickly and find the Witcher. His toothy smile, clumsy flattery poorly disguised as charm, and overall lack of weaponry made him for all intents and purposes a plump chicken waiting on the butcher’s board.

“Perfect. On top of being a dung heap, this place is a maze of incompetence,” Jaskier groaned, slumping back into Geralt again. This time staying. They’d just been directed to the opposite end of the market. A direct one-eighty from their last instructions. Just to find a woman who _apparently_ apparently had once glanced an elf with her pinky fingernail, cut them, been cured of leprosy through that single drop of blood, and then inherited the realm of chaos for all eternity.

Sure.

The Witcher released the breath he’d been holding since they approached their latest would-be guide, a woman of austerity drenched in perfume. Undoubtedly plain of face. Beautiful women rarely felt the need to cast such an overwhelmingly large net. Most women in this town, it seemed, somehow felt the need to blind them in such a way.

“At this point it’s probably less effort to let it just heal on it’s own. These kinds of things wear off after a set while,” Geralt decided grimly. Additionally, at this point, Geralt just wanted out from under the merciless yellow cyclops. The cloth soaked into his eyelids, itchy. The unnatural gaze he’d felt stalking them all day was too idle to overcome an exhausted desire to bathe and eat and sleep somewhere untouched by beasts. 

“If I’m lucky, it should be cured by morning,” Geralt continued. He felt a drip of sweat glide and stall where their respective skins connected, forming an impromptu pool with other beads. He shoved to move the other off him. 

Jaskier listed forward, whining, but after a short period of complaining about being the least appreciated long-suffering best friend to grace any single person in existence ever, decided to bless Geralt with an agreeance to find them a room for the night. 

That was, Jaskier seemed happy to do as he was told, for once, until they wandered back into what must have been the main square.

“It’s getting dark anyway, although it must all be the same to you at this point. Again, cannot stress enough, you are not missing out on anything here. I think that woman might follow us and steal Roach’s tail for her wig later. Good luck, girl.” He awarded the mare a soft pat.

Theere came the idle tuning of strings and a clamour of voices above Roach’s echoing shoes.

“What’s that?” Jaskier perked up immediately, tail all but wagging. 

“Dying cats.” Geralt grumbled. Jaskier was undeterred. 

Especially when the fiddle was joined by another, and another, and began to play for real. Fast and vibrant. Admittedly, not horrendous, as they approached.

There was a chortle, and a whistle, and the sound of Geralt’s night of retire being tossed excitedly out the window in favour of whatever squealy song was unravelling before them.

A maiden giggled. Jaskier slowed Roach, bouncing in tune, and a series of exuberant shouts came to their right, incredibly close. Geralt stiffened. His own hands came round in the same moment to grip Jaskier’s where they attached to the reins. Prepared to gallop them to safety.

Jaskier only laughed. “Dancing! Man if you could see what this place looks like, you would never think it was capable of this. Yet again, I _cannot_ explain in words how much of a waking nightmare, covered in shit, this place resembles. But this…this could be…”

“No.”

“What?”

“No, Jaskier,” Geralt gritted, not embarrassed in the slightest that he had jumped at mere dancers. “No dancing.”

“What—I didn’t say I was going to join them.” There was a dramatic pause where neither of them believed him. Then Jaskier admitted, “Although they could really use some support on the whole wobbly alto front don’t you think?”

“No.” Geralt replied, final and resolute.

But, actually, yes.

A group of children pulled Jaskier from his arms faster than he could growl ‘child-surprise’, and in the next moment he was lost in the circular swell of singing and cheering that swallowed him, stiff and encumbered on Roach’s back. The poor mare was wound too, if only for the sheer number of people that lurched into their company, although Geralt’s head snapping to the sound, temporarily lifting the blindfold to glare indiscriminately, had wayward hands kept from running over her coat. 

Feet stamped. Pounding the earth in a beat. Faster and faster, blending in whorl of hilarity and liveliness. His temples throbbed with trying to keep up.

Jaskier’s voice rose above it all as he belted folk songs, eager and pleased. Witcher forgotten.

And the Witcher was left alone to be furious with his thoughts.

Of course Jaskier left him. The man was incompetent at the best of times. The resiliency of their companionship was kept alive only through the other’s, astoundingly, thick skin and sheer inability to detect when Geralt didn’t want him around. Which was _always_. Yet he flocked to Geralt like a bird to seed. 

Still, like a bird, he remained just as flighty, likely to flit away at the slightest bit more interesting thing. 

Because Geralt was _only_ intensely adventurous when he was fighting monsters. Even if he didn’t like the way the bard romanticized and even deified what he did, he understood in some way that the other was enamoured with the brutality and ability that came with dispatching creatures of chaos. And Geralt was very, very good at that. Words couldn’t be minced there.

But, Geralt was also so intensely intense about everything else that made up his personality— if it could be called that—that it made him boring. He was intensely quiet, and intensely serious, and intensely pessimistic. So Jaskier, his unparalleled opposite, constantly ran off, chasing sparkling dreams or sweet fancies or whatever the fuck, until Geralt’s patience dwindled enough to leave him and keep going. Jaskier chasing after with indignation. He snorted at that. The man always insisted on coming back to him.

Leading Roach slowly forward, determined to make his way on his own, somehow, damn the bard to this crowd, damn that horrible, itchy sensation that wouldn’t leave his skin, Geralt paused.

Pulled the blindfold down and set a searing gaze over the voices and music that almost resembled squalls at this point. It almost felt as though it was coming—

He felt a hand fall on his thigh, and sheer shock at the tenacity kept Geralt from booting the owner in the face.

“Geralt, come down!” Jaskier called gaily, and Geralt could only imagine the kind of face he would be making.

Beaming, hair flopping everywhere as he breathed harshly, beryl eyes fixed only on him. 

Only him. 

Jaskier always came back for him. 

To him.

Geralt’s ears reddened as the bard suggested, “Come dance!”

The Witcher did kick him then. Just not as roughly. But Jaskier came back, incessant. In that remarkably endea-- _idiotic_ way of his, he tugged at Geralt annoyingly, too weak to actually pull the other off the horse. Geralt even coaxed Roach forward for a time, pulling the cloth back over his eyes, hearing Jaskier whine as he held on tighter from being dragged. “Geralt! _Geralt_! Come one!” His fingers dug uncomfortably into Geralt’s thighs.

“Make a fool of yourself, but don’t inflict it on me.”

And then, unexpectedly, Geralt felt other hands, small and tiny, join the effort, and all but yank him to the ground. 

Kids. They disappeared in tiny giggles.

Jaskier acted like a child. It wasn’t surprising he was able to manipulate other children.

Bastard.

Crossing his arms, Geralt declared stonily, “I’m not dancing.”

“Is that not something they teach Witchers?”

“Hmph.” 

“That’s a new one,” Jaskier remarked thoughtfully at the sound. “C’mon, just, I don’t know, jig a bit on the spot.” There was displaced movement as Jaskier, presumably, jigged.

It probably looked horrendous. He felt ashamed just standing next to it.

“Why does it matter?” Geralt groused.

“Does there have to be a reason for everything with you?”

“Generally yes.” The spiders ran tracks over his spine, and Geralt looked about uneasily, scratching his neck. Again without vindication, seeing black. “We should get inside before dark.”

When he moved, Jaskier placed unwelcome hands on his shoulders, trying uselessly to stop him. “Look,” He gasped as he was pushed easily backward by the Witcher’s bulk. The bard always forgot how much weaker and smaller he was. “You can dance now and _actually_ have a good time and enjoy yourself, or, you can _not_ dance, and I’ll sing and tell everybody that you danced anyway in about a hundred different songs, and you’ll have been your usual brooding sad self for nothing.”

“Hmmm.”

Jaskier’s back plastered against Geralt in futility, heels digging. “I’m warning you, you’ll be the ‘Dancer of Rivia’!”

The malignant sensation didn’t dissipate. It intensified over Geralt’s shoulders. Heavy as stones. He realized suddenly that it was cooler, and stopped to feel the air. Jaskier crowed delightedly.

The sun must be setting.

Geralt opened his mouth distractedly to tell Jaskier to ‘fuck off’.

But then arms came under his own, and then he was being tugged sideways. 

Geralt was pulled into a line, and he stumbled slightly, a bit incredulous. Feet flung and tapped to either side of him. The river of bodies leashing him pulsed and weaved and he was at the mercy of it’s current. He was forced, lest he look ridiculous, to fall in step. 

He danced.

The song burst in and out of range as they approached and pulled away from the musicians. The dancers broke into pairs, yet still whorled close to each other, and Geralt didn’t relax but he did let himself follow the flow of sound, feeling a waist here, the reach of his partner’s fingers there as they traded, remembering basic movements and letting himself be turned for foreign ones. Even sightless, he knew how to dance. He didn’t leap when it was called for, but he kicked his feet a little higher. Skipped along in formation. Let people guide him.

He could have stopped. He could have planted his feet and none of them would have been able to move him. Yet he didn’t.

He didn’t, oddly, want to.

The people weren’t scared of him. Not with Jaskier so close, singing, whipping up jubilation like melancholy was his own personal monster. Not with Geralt’s eyes hidden like he could be any blind beggar just joining for a good time.

Every so often Jaskier came out of the crowd, a burst of laughter followed by the calls of young kids as they chased him. 

This time the squeal of a woman pushed him toward Geralt as he sang a particularly raunchy verse. He laughed even through the words, tumbling into the Witcher, force still not enough to bring the other off balance. His back passed close to Geralt, skimming his chest, ducking under the Witcher’s arm as the large man spun. Jaskier plunged back into the carousel of people, steady voice carrying the words of glee high and proud. 

And he couldn’t see any of it, but Geralt could suddenly imagine how everything would be bursting around him, with colour and faces. He couldn’t push down the trepidation fully; concern that Jaskier had again unwittingly conspired against himself and gotten them into trouble; the everlasting fear of being turned on boiling in him, ready to seize his limbs at any waking second; but he could feel it quietened, segued away by the sheer enthusiasm of acceptance.

Jaskier approached again. “Is this allowed, dear Witcher?” Jaskier queried, sarcastic, but good natured. The question was stolen by the noise and Geralt followed as best he could in a half-baked attempt to maintain closeness, before the man disappeared completely.

He accepted the dainty hand of a lady—girl, he realized, as she called out—and pranced round with her several times, fighting the tense corners of his mouth lifting upwards as she laughed. Geralt’s ears felt a bit sore from the pronounced volume and strain. He was almost dizzy with it.

A familiar musk skipped from behind him to his front.

Jaskier.

Geralt let go of the girl and felt the other tug his shoulder into the centre of rambunctious clapping and cheering. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t scowl either as they twisted around each other, back to back, Jaskier singing with unabashed glee. They tapped right, Geralt retreating, spinning to face each other. Then forward, Jaskier nimbly moving in reverse. 

Then they linked elbows and pushed away from each other, and were lost in the tide of excited couples breaking the ring to join the centre.

Geralt gave a slow, bitter snort as he came to a stop, clapping, lowly, to the rhythm. 

So this was what it felt like to be human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh I hope you enjoyed and for real now I apologize for the unexpected turn there with making everyone sit through yet another chapter >___< I still love comments so feel free to yell at me or tell me if you liked it after all<3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in advance I want to say that this is two months late and I promised a few commenters a few times the updates would come earlier, but I really struggled with this one so I'm super apologetic about that! (つ﹏⊂)
> 
> There might be a bit of a prose shift in this chapter compared to the other two. I got stuck on trying to wrap this together neatly and communicate how Geralt was struggling to reconcile his ability to feel with actually feeling something for Jaskier. 
> 
> As a result, I ended up removing the tag indicating we would get any steamy action for these two in this fic, and I'm really sorry for anyone who may have been looking forward to that. It is still rated Mature for violence, but there is no smut.
> 
> And finally, this was betaed by SeeWithMyOwnEyes, who did an awesome job <3 thank you

If Geralt could congratulate Jaskier on any ability, it would be his uncanny tendency to prove the Witcher right in the most fatal of ways. 

And then maybe his tenacity in denying he was the spark to any of the unfolding fires they had to face as a result of not listening to Geralt’s instructions. All the while simultaneously insisting that he _had_ agreed and stuck to the plan originally, but, through a series of compromising and unpredictable circumstances that were practically _the will of the gods, Geralt_ , was forced to disobey.

The partying was a din that lasted well into the witching hour, surprisingly, given the general dilapidation of the town as per Jaskier’s claims. Geralt did his best to remain as relaxed and natural as possible to the townspeople. Though he couldn’t quite quell that last ember of discomfort, some small, minute, baby mouse-sized-thus-practically-nonexistent part of him could agree begrudgingly that it hadn’t been entirely horrible following the bard through the loops of crowd, moving in tune with the quiver of strings. 

They alighted, after a while, on the outskirts together; the Witcher having steered himself back to Roach and crouched quietly against the wall; Jaskier breaking the jubilant formation with an exhausted laugh, claiming he needed to sit. His footsteps were barely discernible over the noise, but that scent would always be unmistakable to the Witcher.

He plonked next to Geralt. Miraculously silent say for heavy breathing.

If only he had known Jaskier was mustering energy for a parodically deep baritone. 

“ _You were incredibly right, as always, Jaskier_ ,” the bard wheezed at the end from leftover exertion. His voice returned to normal, if still panting, “Go on, say it!”

“You are an incredible waste of time, as always, Jaskier,” Geralt groused in a wavering monotone, verging on spiteful. 

“Have you ever heard of the word ‘ungrateful’?”

“I’m about as well acquainted with it as you are with ‘silence’, I’d presume.”

Jaskier had the gall to snort at that. As if Geralt had been joking. “Well, you definitely know your way around stubborn, I’ll give you that.” He lapsed then, and there was air moving around him, though Geralt couldn’t quite figure out what for. He tilted his head towards the other as Jaskier snorted again, trying to decipher the motion as the man’s voice became harder to hear. Indicating he had turned away. “Figures that you’re also pretty good at dancing. Even when your partner’s not a sword, or a fifteen-foot wriggly beastie thing with teeth.”

Geralt realized what Jaskier was doing even as his good mood failed to pull the reigns on his tongue, a teasing question slipping past his lips with a smirk, “Jealous?”

Jaskier was wringing his hands. He wasn’t jealous. 

He was nervous.

“Have you ever thought maybe the reason you’re so miserable all the time is because you’re convinced that’s the only way you can feel?”

Contentment seeped out of Geralt in the same way a butcher drained a kill. 

“I don’t feel anything.” The response was automatic. Rote and bored. He had told Jaskier this before. But it would make sense that Jaskier was as grandly deluded in his understanding of Witchers as he was in the belief that people could ever love him as much as he loved them back. 

“Sounds like misery to me.” 

It was Geralt’s turn to scoff now, and he knew the bard well enough to predict how his face would scrunch with petulance, how his dramatic blue eyes would slit in an indignation known only to the ignorant. He readied himself for the whine, ruminating sullenly that without his eyes, he had had to use his ears a whole lot more thoroughly— which meant _actually listening_ to Jaskier’s incredibly numerous complaints was an inescapable side effect.

“You know Geralt, sometimes I worry about what would happen to you if I ever truly left you.”

The Witcher stilled.

Jaskier often had zero compunctions about opening his mouth and vomiting a question. Vomiting because, when impassioned, the verbal spew was a deluge of frenzied words, as if his tongue were engaging in a race for an extremely complicated interpretive dance. Now, however, the words came slowly, poking warily as a rabbit from a burrow, and even the wind seemed to hold its breath as Geralt absorbed exactly what had been spoken aloud.

Geralt knew that Jaskier meant nothing by it, in the way that ‘nothing’ meant he ‘hadn’t intended to be cruel’. Besides, since Geralt was such a creature of apathy, something so entirely robbed of feeling, he did not feel upset by the idea. 

Life without Jaskier. He experienced it regularly. Jaskier’s proximity to him changed as the weather to the seasons. 

But.

_But._

To experience a perpetual desolation might be something quite different.

Forever without Jaskier might be something quite different.

It did not razor through him like claws. It did not burn or curdle his insides. It did not land with a _plop!_ in his stomach and proceed to toss about there and in his mind as though thrown by an angry sea.

No, the sensation was an aftereffect, intensely delayed, from the wailing ghosts. Nothing to do with Jaskier.

“Then I might share a drink with your Countess and celebrate our combined amelioration,” Geralt said. And stood. 

“Hey wait, Geralt, I’m being se—,” Jaskier started but was swallowed by Geralt’s next lash.

“Have you fucked around long enough, bard, or is there any more of my time you plan on wasting?” He snapped.

Because Geralt knew had Jaskier never returned, he would have left. And if Jaskier had never come to find him, Geralt never would have waited. 

And he wouldn’t have felt anything about it.

Joy echoed around them as a mellifluous blanket. Some of it genuine, some of it drunk, all of it happy. Jaskier sat unmoving. Then Geralt heard him sigh; felt him stand, and then move to Roach, urging her to follow him with soft susurrations. 

They distanced themselves from the joy in silence.

Unfortunately, as they put space between themselves and the merriment, Geralt felt a distinct lack of compulsion to make up for the space between themselves. That was to say, the Witcher allowed the bard to draw apart, so that Jaskier and Roach ended up six paces ahead, while he prowled that same senary pace behind. 

Under normal circumstances, six steps would be nothing unusual. To cross such a measurement in short time was a paltry task for a Witcher. Had Jaskier been attacked, even blind, Geralt would have been disturbed by the noises of discontent, or the lack of sound altogether, in addition to the displaced air of a struggle.

Had Jaskier been attacked, Geralt would have been prepared, because even now, as they wandered, a measurement of six between them, Geralt was attuned to such things.

They attacked Geralt. 

Glass smashed between them and then suddenly Geralt couldn’t hear anything because he was hearing too much. Sound wailed in the night as it erupted against the cobblestones. And then there was ash, and taste and smell that he couldn’t distinguish. Movements that he couldn’t track.

Geralt couldn’t quite understand why he allowed such a gap to grow at all. Particularly since Roach was _his_ horse, and Jaskier was the one who had sourced his _own_ ire, and he really shouldn’t have given a fuck about Jaskier’s sulking, as he had so firmly reaffirmed. 

Maybe it had been because Jaskier might have mistaken the closeness for forgiveness. Maybe because with that, he could have also been provoked into courageousness segueing into a second confrontation.

The truth would elude him. 

Everything was acrid and heady. Geralt opened his mouth in warning, unthinking. He felt the smoke curl in his throat. He coughed, even as he lunged to where he’d known the pair last. Arms came round him before he could make up any ground. Arms that gripped tight, a match for Witcher strength in their numbers.

 _Fuck_ , Geralt thought, as another kind of blackness rushed over him with a _thunk!_

This was all Jaskier’s fault.

\----

He woke to the glib words of his partner. 

“—and that was just from the audience we drew in Murky Waters,” Jaskier was saying, and Geralt shifted gently. As he moved, Jaskier stiffened, but as though possessed by some recently discovered subtly, did not bring attention to his companion’s reanimation. 

Blinking back a still ceaseless black, Geralt tried to make a hazy map of their circumstances. They had been pretzeled into a woefully familiar binding, fingers lashed together with rope as he sat back to back with Jaskier. He smelt smoke. Close enough to get a mouthful, and enough to feel the heat on his skin. The musk of horses, Roach among them. The distinct earthy damp, unpolluted by sewage, and low song of the wind was enough to tell Geralt they had moved some distance outside of the town. 

“That explains exactly nothing about what I asked you,” A male voice intoned flatly. Gritty, older, and near to Jaskier. Geralt honed in on it immediately, realizing that he was facing away from the camp hearth while Jaskier was facing towards it, and the stranger. He took notice of the odor of mould surrounding the speaker; the sounds of a knife _‘skritch-skritch’_ ing further back from it in tune with whistling; and a chuckle that came farther still. Two more breaths huffed, low and heavy. Deep sound sleepers tucked away for the night.

So far, that made five.

Geralt strained, testing the bindings as delicately as he could, working through their predicament. Five men. Making camp in the woods. Bandits taking advantage of migrants? There would be little ‘advantage’ for such a group to keep them alive as prisoners. And they had known enough, somehow, to wrest a Witcher unconscious. He recalled the itchy feeling that had skittered over his skin throughout the town, and added surveillance to the band’s repertoire uneasily. 

It could not be a coincidence.

“How long do we have to put up with this blindness shit?” The voice gruffed again, impatient. “Stop wasting my time and me what exactly ailed this pasty fuck!”

Geralt stilled his minute motions as his thoughts were confirmed.

Five men that knew enough to recognize an _impaired_ Witcher. Track them. And then cash in on opportunity. 

The ill wonder of _’why’_ slithered through him but he shook it aside quickly. Hatred of Witchers came to men like a bruxa to blood, and deciphering which of those reasons had possessed these particular men would be a waste of time. People had an enormously stupid propensity to want to fight him whenever they realized how much stronger than them he was. Despite all the songs, for many the fright of the ‘Butcher’ held endurance over the ‘White Wolf’. That kind of trepidation often manifested in insolent rage, a fury fed by fear to kill first what made a living of killing. 

Besides, if it was really a concern, he could drag it out of one of them later.

Jaskier argued. “I’m getting to that part! Trust me, this is all very crucial.”

“Crucial to what?”

A pause followed, then the bard broke pregnant silence. “…I believe it’s referred to as, ‘dodging the question’.” 

Jaskier jerked back then, hit. Geralt let himself be jostled with the blow, maintaining the ruse even as his lips threatened to snarl. The musty scent grew exceptionally close, a glove brushing the Witcher’s ear. Clearly grabbed, Jaskier’s head was ripped forward again, and he groaned as the stranger spat, “Dodge that you fucking _lout_.”

“Oh, that was clever,” Jaskier wheezed. Scraping together a chipper quip through still unsteady breaths, he added, “Bet you don’t get that compliment often.” His reward was another bludgeon and a _‘Cheeky fuck!’_.

Jaskier spat and Geralt could taste copper air.

_Ignore it._

Geralt ground his teeth around the thought as he made it a mantra.

Ignore it. Ignore it. Ignoreitignoreitignoreitignore **him** ignore—

He concerned himself with feeling for the rope again, even as it noosed his hands into near inoperable limbs. Whatever window he’d been given to hatch their escape was sure to be short. Thankfully, there was a limit to the knowledge of these men. Geralt wrapped his own digits as fully as he could over Jaskier’s bound wrists, taking advantage of the violence to disguise his actions.

Then waited.

“Holy shit just put him out if he won’t shut up, York,” a second voice came high and reedy, the knife scraping stopping. 

“We need to figure out exactly what kind of spell blinded the Witcher, and whether it’ll last,” York retorted, standing and shoving Jaskier away so that he rested on Geralt once more. “Do you realize how fucking useless he’ll be to Cross like this?”

“Yeah, but dunno’ why you keep questioning _him_ instead of the _Witcher_ —", the new voice continued, Jaskier pulled himself upright at that, “—twat looks ‘bout as bright as a rock.”

“Well that’s just unfair,” Jaskier interjected loudly, drawing York’s attention again. “Isn’t not answering your questions the smart thing to do in this situation?”

York’s responding sigh almost resonated with Geralt. A chillingly near-perfect imitation. Maybe the man even rolled-eyes the same way. His lip curled at that. Revolted at his own likening to such a bastard, because Geralt too was pissed at the bard for tossing water so blithely at a grease fire.

Their persistent captor bent low and came back to that same intrusive closeness. Jaskier tried to worm away, anxiety spiking, wrists jerking in Geralt’s grip as he tried to keep them hidden. York’s breath twisting over them as he hissed, “You tell me. Does it feel very smart?” 

Jaskier stuttered in reply, “Feels very much like you’re digging into my s-side with a _v-very_ pointy knife.”

“So we understand each other,” York remained crouched, but there was a hum of metal as the knife was moved to scratch across the would-be interrogator’s face idly. He seemed to study Jaskier. “Your singing must be awfully pretty for this bastard to let you keep that fucking tongue inside your skull.”

“He’s rather fond of it, yes.” 

Geralt frowned at that, feeling Jaskier was being very liberal with such an interpretation.

“Is he now…?” 

Jaskier kicked himself further into Geralt suddenly, pressing their hands between them, and Geralt willed himself not to move as he tried to place what was happening, hearing Jaskier gurgle. “Should we take that first then, to show the ‘Butcher’ how serious we are about ‘cooperating’, hmm?”

A moan wrested itself from the bard’s throat, wet and tortured like some creature pulling itself from a well, and the metallic tang came sharper on Geralt’s tongue. And then he didn’t need fucking eyes to see what was happening. 

The image burned, searing like a brand, as it painted itself in sounds and smell.

York had his knife in Jaskier’s mouth. 

Every vein ignited. He felt it like a spell; like a curse; like vile magic rending through him, like he was erupting with something alien and unknown and oh-so-very hot.

He held himself still and felt for all the world like molten metal hissing under a stream.

“How does it taste, songbird?”

“Vell, ith h’adnth been wathed ihn a whyle.”

He thought back to the noonwraiths and the seconds after the blinding.

He thought about the djinn and those first red wet splatters across the riverbank.

He thought about the golem and watching rock crumble overhead; the fleder and hearing bone snap over its screeching.

He thought about the crowd— every crowd— and how Jaskier always wriggled his way back to him, needling Geralt with a whine, engaging with him as though he’d been the most interesting person there all along and he’d only wanted other people to know it.

“You think the Witcher will bother to keep around a little birdie that can’t sing?”

_“What would happen to you if I ever truly left you?”_

Geralt would have left.

Geralt wouldn’t have cared.

Geralt _didn’t_ care.

“Or maybe we’ll take some of those playing fingers—,”Jaskier gasped as the knife drew away. 

Geralt’s hands clamped down on the bard in the next instant and he pulled hard and a word unfurled, rippling with his anger, lashing the air. 

_’Igni!’_. 

Fire dissolved the rope. Jaskier cried out, both alarmed and pained as he landed on his back from the pull. Even with taming the spell, to burn away the thick fibres the flames had had to come hot. They sputtered out quickly as Geralt crouched; pivoted; lunged, his target well placed.

York could barely be surprised because in the next moment he was being choked.

When he got a grasp on the weapon’s hilt, Geralt sneered, pulling the captured throat close, “Fingers? Yes, I think three should suffice.”

The digits hit the earth with a scream. It pealed through the air and shook birds from their nests and sent critters skittering. The rest of the band were quick to the alarm. Well trained, or at least tenured, as they ran to York’s aid. Reedy voice, yet to be fully introduced, made it closest before the blade at his companion’s neck froze his motion. “Bastard!”

“Careful now,” Geralt growled. York was a yowling mess, spasming over his lessened fingers with his complete set. The squelching was almost distracting. Geralt shook him. “Shut up.”

“Careful yourself, you _‘White Fuck’_. You’re outnumbered,” Reedy threatened, plainly scared underneath papery bravado. As if he realized how much he was lying. 

“Hmmm,” Geralt refuted coolly. 

“A-and you’re blind!” Reedy tried. The two formerly dozing members of his company were still slowly, but not-so-carefully, creeping forward in an attempt to regroup. One paused, and there was a low _’crick’_. An arrow nocked. “You can’t win this fight. Don’t make us prove it.”

“On the contrary,” Geralt sighed. “I think it might be time _somebody_ got the pleasure of being proven wrong.”

“W-what?”

York was dead before he hit the ground, but his body didn’t know it. It writhed, geysering behind the Witcher as he plunged into the fight. Wielding the small blade* was not like swords. The reach was short, and he had to come in close. He let the first arrow stay on target to his chest, slicing it before impact as he waited for Reedy; dodging the swing of the other’s dagger by stepping right and burying the knife in the man’s neck. 

He shoved the corpse free of the blade, meeting the rush of two men. He ducked under a cut, aimed slow and sloppy for his collar, before standing and running his knife along the strong** of the other attacker, lodging at the sword’s guard. 

The first man had a cleaver—he’d heard the weight of it—the second, a longsword.

Another arrow sang past, snicking across his cheek uselessly.

Using strength to drive the swordsman’s weapon high overhead, joining his knife with a thick, bruising grip at the other man’s right wrist, Geralt kicked at him and shoved, sending him crashing into the earth. Then Geralt stepped back. The cleaver whistled past his face. A cumbersome weapon choice; far overbalanced on the blade. Leading to an overstep that Geralt took advantage of as ‘Cleaver’ stumbled past, near trampling his friend. 

‘Swordsman’ had regained his footing. His forward thrust came for Geralt’s gut, but the Witcher slid under, gripping the sword hand tightly and stabbing deep into the pit beneath his shoulder. Swordsman’s floundered, slapping an arm ineffectively against Geralt’s back, shrieking when the knife was pulled out. Geralt twisted the sword from the failing hand, letting the man crash and bleed in the muck. 

Now dually armed, he brought the sword up to guard against a returning Cleaver, sliding to a kneel with a one-handed grip under the force of the blow. That, usually, was why some men went for such a weapon. Brute strength. A third arrow spat, and Geralt jerked completely to avoid it, throwing himself backward. Cleaver chased, eager. 

Overeager. 

The man cut from the side, missing as Geralt scrambled back, then back again, and again as Cleaver followed him across the earth, slicing wildly. 

Then, Geralt felt the heat on his back. After dodging a final swing, he dropped his knife and lurched forward, grabbing Cleaver’s jerkin. The man, once more overextended, could only follow Geralt’s arm as it yanked him into the flames. Cleaver screeched as he was engulfed, brought to his knees from the pull. His misery was mercifully short as Geralt tightened his grip on the jerkin, heedless of the fire, before skewering the man with his comrade’s sword. He stilled and burned, impaled.

The final standing member, the archer, seemed to ruminate upon the miraculously unalive characteristics of his band and decide to indulge the coward’s honour. Geralt heard the bow clatter and _’twang!’_. Footsteps singing flight.

Geralt found the knife again before the man could get far. 

He hit the ground with a _thump!_

Straightening from a crouch, Geralt breathed heavy. The wind tasted foul, the enkindled flesh making a pyre of human sure to beckon eager crows. But he gulped it nonetheless. Sighing.

Sightlessness was a laughably small handicap against mankind.

Then Geralt blinked.

Realizing his vision was not quite so black. 

Slowly, almost reverently, he raised his hands to the blindfold, and noticed hazy outlines through it. He pulled his eyes free just as slow, blinking and squinting. Orange was a blotch in a grey cast scene. He rubbed hastily at his eyes with a forefinger and thumb, and was rewarded with a crisper tableau. Dawn encroaching on a largish camp. No tents, just bed rolls and packs roughed into disrepair. Horses lashed at the edge. He mused, idly, that it was fortuitous the dead men had picked a spot so clear of roots and vines, considering the tangle of trees that lined the small clearing.

“Geralt! Ow, ouch—Geralt, that was incredible!” Jaskier called, his excited voice completely detached from the carnage around him, where blood splattered over the ashy mud and ashen men as casually as slop on pig farm. He ran over, rubbing his wrists with a grimace. As he approached, surveying the brutal heximation and curling his lip at the kneeling man gored in the fire, he noticed the reveal of Geralt’s face. “…were you just faking?” He sounded slightly disappointed. 

“No,” Geralt growled, still squinting through a blur. It was like seeing through a thick veil, or thin stretched canvas, everything beneath it blots of ink that shifted in shape until they came into close focus. Like Jaskier’s face, which swelled purple on the left temple and cheek, and tracked red beneath his lips. 

“Ah. Sure. Alright then,” In the next moment, his hand landed on Geralt’s shoulder, which Geralt stared at pointedly. “You did that all completely blind,” Jaskier drawled; then winked; then sang; 

_His eyes were in the dark  
But his sword aim took no part—  
He cut through the men like  
A white scythe through grai—in—_

“—It does sound rather astounding that way, doesn’t it?” 

Geralt shook him off quickly, eyes worshipping a long unworshipped sun as they rolled, and irritably stomped to Roach. He heard Jaskier’s clomping, clumsy feet scutter after him, like some curious goat. 

He bobbed back into vision, practically ecstatic, hair flopping in tandem with his unflappable buoyancy, although part of it was sticky and black. Unaffected. Unconcerned, as though he’d known he wasn’t in any danger.

He’d talked that way to those men too. Like he’d felt he wasn’t in any kind of trouble.

Why?

Because Geralt had been there.

Because Geralt was constantly there to put himself between anything that was larger, nastier and usually always angrier than the bard. 

Geralt tore at the ropes trapping Roach to a trunk, giving her a reassuring stroke. Jaskier slid in beside him. “So is that it then? You’re cured?”

“It’ll wear off fully soon.”

“Well that was rather anticlimactic,” Jaskier gestured to himself, “I barely got to do anything.”

“…How unusual.” It was at that moment Geralt noticed, ochre eyes flicking to his peripheral, that the bard was rubbing over his left wrist, both joints glistening red and raw. The left one had been directly under the ‘fire-spell’, and would have borne the force of the ignition. 

“They certainly wanted you to do a lot though, so you’re welcome for keeping them distracted. Wanted to gift you to a Lord Crass or Kriss or Cross—anyway, apparently he is a very esteemed creature hunter, wanted to try adding a Witcher to his collection. Offered a lot of money.”

Predictable. That might warrant putting down, since the call hadn’t been for Geralt specifically. He kept his eyes locked forward while he straightened Roach’s saddle and checked inventory. Then asked stiffly, “Did the knife not cut deep?” 

Jaskier winced, fingers leaving his burn and curving over the lump of his right cheek, where the red nick of a laugh line had been carved as the blade pulled from his mouth. “Not really. I mean it’s a lot worse on the inside. Bit like blood pudding.” He nursed his wrist again.

“What about the fire?” This question came quick and fierce alongside a coiling in Geralt’s gut, and he indulged a snap of his eyes to the bard and back. 

The hand stilled. “Eh, I think they might be a little swollen, not really a big deal…”

“Let me see.” Geralt turned to him abruptly. A tad menacing.

The bard put space between them quickly, turning to shield his injuries. “Why?”

“Show them to me,” Geralt clarified poorly.

“Just because you got your eyesight back doesn’t mean you get to abuse it—"

“ _Jaskier_.”

“Okay fine-fine-fine,” Jaskier held his right arm out quickly, with all the apprehension of a yet-to-be-scolded child. Below a balled fist, the scourge wrapped bright and shiny and blistered. Geralt stared at the angry, sanguine bracelet, pondering how much worse it would be on the left, before releasing the limb roughly. Reminding Jaskier what an inconvenience he was.

“The burns require salves.” The last thing Geralt wanted was to listen to Jaskier’s bellyaching later if negligence lead to an infection. 

Which was why, after letting the other horses wander free and relieving the humiliated corpses of their coin, Geralt had mounted Roach and transported them somewhere relatively distanced from the camp, then seated Jaskier forcefully on an erupting root, intending to slather the lesions with a mash of vitriol, rebis and hydragenum. 

He’d slicked some over his own cheek dispassionately. Then fought a pitiable fight with Jaskier when the man witnessed that chewing the solution and spitting it back into the mortar was part of the process. 

“Stopstopstopstopnonono—stop it! Let go!”

“Why are you always such a child.”

“Geralt only _children spit out their food!_ ”

“The saliva is an essential component. I’ve told you this before.”

“Yeah I’m sure the smile is too,” Jaskier whined pitiably as, arm pinned at the elbow to Geralt’s knees, the solution was adhered along with the wrap of warmed bandages. “Ugh. Ahhh, why is it so _slimy_? It’s like being wrapped in sick,” Geralt grimaced at that, lip twitching.

“Think of it this way, you’ll smell just like destiny now,” he sneered.

“Ha ha, well then I’d better hope you’ve had some onions recently then. How did the first one of you even figure out that this works? What, did you all just— hawk on each other one day after a row? Spit on a stitch and notice it was fixed? Gods, Geralt, trust me, it is the least sexy application of saliva I have ever endured. _Ever_. Even with that one—"

Geralt indulged a very sorely missed privilege and tuned the other out. Mostly, at first, just to see if he could— but also, in that moment, because he became ridiculously distracted. Holding warm limbs at one of their most fragile points of stress. Watching Jaskier’s face as it twisted and stretched, his whinging, woeful words still polluted by a smile. Making all his complaining seem rather disingenuous. 

Geralt barely tolerated him.

Yet Jaskier always had an unfathomable confidence in his presence.

Geralt told him how little he cared for him.

Yet Jaskier chased him and begged attention and validation.

As if, completely contrary to the expected, to the correct, acknowledgement from Geralt could only be perceived as the highest ascension, and not just because Geralt was big and scary and swathed in black and had eyes like liquid amber and could cut through beasts with triple of those qualities, but because Geralt himself possessed something that for Jaskier was unobtainable in literally anyone else.

And Geralt could be damned if he could figure out _what_ , and that fact made him—

Geralt stalled suddenly. 

That made him _curious_.

Curious in that he wanted to know what exactly was happening between them. Evolving between them. Because Witcher’s didn’t feel, and he didn’t care, but when Jaskier was threatened—

—his heart pounded—

—raced, in truth—

—and he hadn’t wanted to contemplate it but it clawed its way to the forefront anyway, a disease, a poisonous spell, a toxic omnipotence that purred in his ear and whispered unbidden thoughts in the same way that that sorceress had bewitched his mind and left it irrevocably infested. 

“—so I guess that puts an end to our fruitless adventures in ‘Scat Town’. Actually you never got the pleasure of observing what exactly they considered to be fruit there, did you? You know that squiggley rancid thing in that horrible cave, with all those creepy little lice scuttling around in its stomach? Imagine those same lice, dead, but just bigger,” Jaskier’s ramble ended as inopportunely as it could, and he smirked at Geralt, once again very incorrectly assuming himself to be the height of comedic genius. His smirk slid away at the stare he witnessed. “…Geralt? What-what are you staring at? Have I got something—,” Jaskier patted over his own face with his free hand. He forgot the state of it however, hissing immediately. “ _Ahhh._ ”

Wanting to understand Jaskier was not something Geralt had recently discovered. As his common musings— if ever subjected to examination by an external party— demonstrated, he had not licked that aspect off a stone. To be wary was to be a Witcher.

“Geralt, what is it?”

Rather now, perplexation might have fed itself into intrigue.

Rather now, he was confronting himself with the reality that idle curiosity might have transformed. Unchecked, it had sprouted into _more_. Taken root and entrenched itself deep.

Deep enough, impossibly yet maybe, to puncture something long buried. Finding in hardened, molded insouciance, an overlooked dredge of pathos like the last wet tendril of a sere stream. And feeding from it, so that both sensations became entangled, and Geralt, confused. 

“I’m not joking Geralt, tell me if you’re going deaf now instead!” Jaskier, apparently having enough of hearing himself— an accomplishment which Geralt would have jestingly celebrated had he not been wrapped up in the intricacies of an existential crisis— surprised the Witcher with a firm yank and tug on his shirt collar with both hands. Such a celebration would have been short lived however, as Jaskier demanded in complete negation of his personal growth, “Pay attention to me damn it!”

Geralt responded vaguely, “You’re beguiling.”

“What?” Jaskier’s face scrunched unattractively.

“A human who would spend his days with a Witcher, even when so many end as this one,” Geralt snorted derisively as Jaskier let go, then allowed the Witcher to work on the other burn, “Makes me wonder what creature got you. There might be something of a curse on your life.”

“Or maybe, regardless of how it ends, I’m just someone who likes spending time with a friend?” At Geralt’s look Jaskier’s eyebrows raised high. Challenging. “Just because you don’t admit it _doesn’t mean it’s not true._ ” His voice turned rather high and affected towards the end.

“Just because you want something to be true doesn’t mean it’ll manifest,” Geralt countered, tucking the end of the dressing in.

“And somehow, I follow you anyway,” Jaskier brushed him off effortlessly, “You’re quick on a lot of things Geralt, but looks like you still have a lot of road on this one.” He stood and stretched bandaged limbs overhead, yawning. “Guess that’s the advantage of being human, we don’t have a lot of time on our hands so we have to figure it out fast. What we all mean to each other.” 

He turned, then paused, a strange expression passing over him. Something that Geralt would have recognized had he been able to see him back in town, plastered with sweat, sitting close enough to have felt his heat and wringing hands.

“…just so you know—I mean, it probably warrants saying, since we both could’ve died and all earlier and I know these things bother you more than you let on—but, you—you know I’d never _willingly_ choose to leave you alone forever, right?”

In stories, moments like these often were punctuated with an absence of sound, nothing audible say for a thrumming heart as it made its sonata, all the world drawn back and cloaked in theatric silence. This did not happen for Geralt. His ears were too keen. Even as his heart began to thud so fast it was almost bellowing, and his blood felt like both ice and molten liquid as it burned around his ears; even then, he could hear the trees murmur under the wind, and all the small creatures that made their home in the boughs as they answered the call of day. He could even hear Jaskier, who was also breathing a bit too fast.

It was all so loud, Geralt became absorbed in it. The hissing and chittering and rustling and breathing and the pulse, all in rhythmic coordinance and cacophonous dissonance that swelled between the words of his thoughts so that he couldn’t string anything together.

He could only stare.

“Alright _fine_ ,” Jaskier gave a sarcastic huff, “I get it that _you_ ‘don’t care’. But I do, alright? So I thought it worth saying. I’ll go sleep, leave you alone to—to brood.” He waved a hand dismissively.

With that, he took Geralt’s silence as answer enough, and with delicate arranging of his limbs as he propped up against a mossy trunk, fell asleep. Speckled sunlight making a natural toile over his still form.

Geralt watched him. Even as Geralt stood and attended to Roach, brushing over her soothingly. 

Jaskier was a plague, something that infected his life.

Jaskier was his anthropomorphized contrast, a reflection in a diametric mirror.

Jaskier was his ill sense, the incorrect path, the voice on the wrong shoulder to heed. 

And yet.

_”What would happen to you if I ever truly left you?”_

And yet Jaskier had promised never to go, and, despite being fettered by a thousand years of empirical fact, a millennium of indomitable magic that screeched at the impossibility, the wrongness, that he ‘wasn’t supposed to, that he ‘never would’, Geralt felt relief. Contentment.

He felt that, looking at Jaskier. Because he’d agreed to stay.

He _felt_ that.

“Maybe I’m the one under a spell,” Geralt admitted aloud, and Roach gave a whinny.

Witchers were never supposed to feel. But around Jaskier, Geralt couldn’t help the small, pathetic, deluded thought that just maybe, he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The knife would be more equivalent to a fixed blade knife from our 1900s than a more historically accurate dagger which resembles an ice pick—the blade is much shorter, which is why York was able to use it on Jaskier  
> **this is not a typo—this is the part of the longsword that is close to the guard
> 
> For Jaskier's mini song in this chapter, I kind of like to imagine as time went on verses were added from certain regions to 'Toss a Coin' about the different stories/monsters that Geralt brought with him, while the chorus stayed the same, even if in canon it is all intended to be the same song about the elves.
> 
> Got a lot of motivation from my peeps on the AWBB to keep pushing so if any of you wander here thanks guys!


End file.
